URBAN NOSTALGIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1939, Page 6

URBAN NOSTALGIA

PLACE WITH NO STREETS. When the groat exodus came from ' British cities at the outbreak of war, two expectant mothers from London were received in a country house that has all the charm associated with the name, writes Sir W. Beach Thomas. The rooms are pleasant and spacious, ; the garden is extremely beautiful in form, and the flowers are so fine that they win prizes at the Royal Horticultural Society's shows. When you pass from the shade of a splendid i beech tree out of the gate into the road you come in sight of a little village scene that has long seemed to mo one of the most pleasant and most I English in England. The ingredients are old timbered cottages, great trees and the relics of a Gothic church, “bosomed high" in trees and bushes which make it a favourite choir for , cur singing birds. On the third day of j their visit the two London women I clean disappeared. Cars were sent out , to search the countryside, but all in ! vain; the vanishing trick had been per■j fcctly performed although the humble

J luggage remained in their rooms. Aclay later a postcard was received from London. Il contained sufficiently graci- ( us thanks for the kindness that they had received, but the chief burden was j a complaint against the Air Raid Pre- ■ cautions authorities for having sent them to a place “where there were no . streets!"